


Locked In

by daisybrien



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Humour, Trapped In A Closet, close enough, not really a closet its a pretty big room but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-25 00:36:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3790054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisybrien/pseuds/daisybrien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi and Hange find themselves in a tight situation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Locked In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



“Out of all the people I could’ve been stuck in a supply closet with,” Levi hisses, his hands balled into fists as they slam against the wood of the door, dust floating from the crevices in the grain, “it had to be you.”

He turns away from the door, his fists tightening angrily by his sides, his face twisted in irritation. He can barely see through the gloom of the supply room in front of him, the only light present the dim glow of the hallway from underneath the door. Hange is nothing but a dark silhouette in front of him, a lump of dark grey in the sea of black. He hears the scuffing of boots, the creak of a crate as it’s dragged across the floor.

“It could be worse,” her voice sounds in front of him, low and laughing. Levi watches as her body moves alongside the shelves that line the walls, his eyes straining in the blackness to perceive the shape of the room in front of him. Her silhouette grows shorter as he hears something collapse onto wood, the sound of her butt seating itself onto one of the crates of supplies that litter the floor.

“Could be worse?!” Levi says. “You locked us into a supply closet with no one around.”

“You could be stuck with one of the recruits,” Hange chuckles to herself, her throaty laughter filling the room, making Levi’s blood boil in his heart, his chest thumping. “At least I’m your friend.”

Levi scoffs to himself, turning back to the door. He tries jiggling the handle again, pulling at the door, but to no avail. Muttering to himself, he starts to get down on his knees, cringing at the feeling of dust and dirt underneath his hands. He squints into the brightness of the hallway beyond, the sliver beneath the door the only way of seeing anything outside the dank room. Even from his limited view, he knows there is no one nearby, no boots appearing through the thin opening.

“Fuck,” Levi spits. He gets up, the muscles in his back aching with the motion. Once he straightens, he starts banging on the door.

“Is anyone out there?” He repeats the phrase over and over again, his throat growing raw. One of his boots joins into the ruckus, his toe making a deafening crash as it makes contact with the door. The skin on the side of his hand starts to tingle in pain, but he strikes the door harder and faster, his voice growing hoarse.

Another sound starts the join him, and at first he feels elated, another voice a welcome sound to his ears. He stops banging his fists, breathing a sigh of relief before his ears recognize the loud, rambunctious laugh. It isn’t muffled from outside the door, but echoing loudly against the walls. Levi clicks his teeth, hands slowly falling to his sides.

“How can you laugh at a time like this?” Levi shouts, whipping around to face the darkness. Hange’s mirth only grows, each hiccup of joy punctuated by the occasional snort.

“You’re hilarious, Levi,” Hange sighs, the last of her laughter wheezing out of her.

“Well I don’t see you doing anything to get us out of here,” Levi says.

“There’s no point to it now,” Hange says. “You know there is no one in these hallways during the day. People barely come by here unless they’ve run out of something.”

“So you think we should just wait here to rot.”

“I’m saying wait until someone spills something or someone runs out of ink,” Hange says. “They’ll notice we’re gone by dinner.”

“You want us to fucking wait in here until dinner?” Levi exclaims.

“Unless you want to kick the door down.” Hange says. “Although Erwin would be pretty pissed if he had to pay for destroyed property because of us.”

“Ugh,” Levi groans, turning to kick his boot into the wall. “How are they going to even know we’re in here?”

“We are surrounded by cleaning supplies,” Hange says. “They’ll know you’re here.”

“Very fucking funny,” Levi hisses.

“Thank you.”

Levi groans, his fingers rubbing his temples and he sighs out his nose. His exasperation gets a small chuckle in response, setting his heart aflutter and his nerves on end simultaneously.

“I can’t believe you got us locked in here,” Levi grumbles. He presses his back to the wall, sliding slowly down to the floor. His butt hits the cold cement with a bump.

“You can’t blame me for this.” Hange says. “You were in here first, which means you forgot to use the doorjamb properly.”

“You were the one who ran in here like a maniac,” Levi says. He remembers her stampeding into the closet, almost bowling him over as she pushed her way through the shelves, long muscled arms knocking over the stacks he had been arranging. He had grabbed her wrist, knocked her hip with his own to move her away when the door began to swing shut. The last thing he saw in the relative light of the room were Hange’s brown eyes, wide in alarm before she turned around in a futile attempt to stop the door from clicking shut, her ponytail whipping him in the face, his cheek still stinging with the impact.

“That has nothing to do with your inability to use doorjambs properly.”

“Well maybe you knocked it out when you ran in here.”

“I think I would know what I’ve ran into or not,” Hange says in a matter-of-fact tone. “I’m not irresponsible. Unlike you with your doorjamb-ing skills.”

“Whatever,” Levi groans. He leans his head back, closing his eyes. “I guess we’ll just wait here until we die of starvation.”

“There are food stocks in here, Levi.”

“Of boredom, then.”

“You have me to talk to.”

“Oh fucking joy.”

He hears a defeated sigh, clothes shifting and wood creaking, Hange adjusting herself on the crate she had sat herself on.

“You could always kill time organizing the shelves for the fifth time this week,” Hange sighs. “At least I brought paperwork in here.”

“Oh that’s great,” Levi huffs. “I didn’t know you could see in the dark.”

The room settles into silence, and Levi smirks to himself, thinking he had earned the upper hand. He hears a shuffle, the sound of boots gentling tapping against the floor, their sound muffled by the dirt. There is a soft hum, as if in deep thought, before Hange speaks again.

“There are lamps in here, aren’t there?” Hange asks quietly. He hears wood creak, the squealing of shoes making their way to his side. He can see the faint outline of Hange’s body as she makes her way towards the door, nothing but a faint line of dirty yellow lining the fine curve of her lower body in a soft glow. Two patches of darkness block the glowing light from underneath the closet door, illuminating the brown leather of her uniform boots.

“Good luck finding them,” Levi mutters, puffing out his breath.

“You’re in here a lot,” Hange says. “Where do you put them?”

“How the fuck am I supposed to tell where they are?”

“You don’t have to see them,” Hange says. “Just tell me where they are. I’m sure you’ve lined them up in neat little rows on the shelves by now.”

Levi turns to her outline, squinting at her incredulously despite the knowledge that she can’t see his face. She would probably tell him he looked constipated with his expression, anyway.

“You want me to give you directions in a dark room,” Levi says slowly, “one in which neither of us can see, so that you can find fragile glass lamps that require gentle handling so that you can do your work?”

“Yes.”

“Suck my dick, Hange,” Levi spits. He draws his legs closer to himself, resting his elbows on his knees.

“Only if you suck mine first,” Hange says with a laugh. “Or show me where the lamps are.”

“I’m not navigating this room in the dark,” Levi grumbles. “In fact, I would rather sleep. I haven’t slept in two days.”

“Just tell me where they are,” Hange whines, her usual energy in her voice replaced with sighs of exasperation.

Levi sighs, rubbing his face. “They’re probably at the back of the room, on one of the shelves to the left. They should be on one of the lower ones.”

Hange gives a soft hum of sly pleasure, her shoes disappearing from the span of the light shining through the crack. He hears something soft padding against the floor, along with the squeak of rubber soles. There’s a few scuffling sounds, followed by the sound of clinking glass before he thinks Hange starts to move forward again.

“You better not break anything,” Levi says.

“You can make sure of that when you actually help.”

“Just be careful,” Levi sighs. He feels heat rise in his ears, the truth a blow to his ego. “Do you need help?”

“No,” Hange says, and he can almost hear the smirk on her face as clear as day. “I’m doing just fine without you, but thanks for the offer-“

There’s a sudden crash, the sound of wood smacking against the floor, against each other, the sound making him jolt. Hange lets out a yelp, cursing to herself as she draws air in between her teeth, hissing in pain.

“Are you okay?” Levi asks. He starts to move forward, hands extended in front of him as he slowly moves forward on his haunches, using his touch to get a sense of the room around him. His hands hit nothing but empty air, and he spreads his fingers wider before his ring finger clings to something soft. He moves to his left, his hand grasping what he thinks is Hange’s shirt, fingers curling around a leather strap before he shifts himself closer.

“Yeah,” Hange says shakily. Levi’s hands run over her shoulders, finding her neck, getting a sense of her position before letting go. “I think I just knocked over a couple of mops.”

“Okay.” Levi says. “You sure nothing is hurt.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Good,” Levi says. “Why the fuck were you on the floor?”

“You said they were on one of the lower shelves,” Hange explains. “Why the fuck are you on the floor?”

“I,” Levi says, his brow furrowing. He had made the entire distance towards her crouched towards the ground, not even thinking to get up. He cringes, glad the darkness had hidden his stupidity. He wonders how much dirt must be staining his jeans. “I don’t know”

Hange gives a small huff of laughter. “Well if you’re already down here, you might as well give me a hand.”

He complies this time, straightening himself up as he takes the lead in front of her. His ankle almost twists as he moves forwards, his foot knocking into the fallen broom handles. He kicks them to the side, feeling his way through the upper shelves just in case.

The next few minutes pass by in aimless wandering before Levi hears the click of glass against glass.

“I think I found them,” Hange chirps. The clinking glass grows to a crescendo before stopping, Hange grunting. “Now we just need to get something to light them.”

“There should be matches beside them,” Levi says. He keeps searching the stacks of boxes and bags lining the wall, hands groping everything nook they can reach, fingers tracing edges carefully in an attempt to match the unknown shapes to objects. He slowly makes his way to the back of the room, no box small or slim enough to hold matches.

He hears something shake, a small rattling sound filling the air. “Found them.” Hange chimes again, the rattling continuing. He waits in silence, listening to Hange’s humming, the offbeat, made up tune he hears when she’s deep in thought or struggling with something, his foot tapping against the floor. There’s a grating sound, like grazing something against sandpaper, yellow sparks flickering out as soon as his eyes catch their luminous glow.

The match lights after a few tries, the small orange flame providing a welcome source of light in the black. It shines off Hange’s glasses, the silver glint making Levi jump, her eyes white and shining like a predator hunting down someone in the dark.

The orange orb from the match disappears behind Hange’s torso, soft shadows sending eerie shapes of light across the walls. With a flare of light, the closet bursts into a soft glow, the contours of Hange’s face cast in shadow as she smiles in triumph into the glass of the newly lit lamp in her hands.

“Well that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Hange says. She sets it down onto the crate, crouching to find another lamp. She lights this one faster now, her hands nimble and swift as she lights another match, the welcome light shining through the room and finally giving them a view of their surroundings.

Levi furrows his eyebrows when he looks around the room. The flame emphasizes the disorder and dirt, his eyes picking out tiny messes and gross spots he would have otherwise never seen. Boxes and bags lay strewn haphazardly over the higher shelves, the bottom ones and the floor reserved for wooden crates, half filled with weaponry and foodstuffs. His boots were already covered in a thin coating of dirt, his white jeans stained brown.

“I never realized how disgusting this place was,” Levi grunts, grimacing. 

“Now you’ll just have more time to clean, we’re gonna be here a while.” Hange says. She takes one lamp to the door, bending to look at it before rising up again.   
“Especially since the knob isn’t just locked from the outside. It’s jammed.”

“You have to be joking.”

“Nope,” Hange chirps. “We’ll just have to get comfortable.”

“Hard to get comfortable when you’re surrounded by all this fucking grime,” Levi says, kicking his foot across the floor, a plume of dirt blooming up from underneath his foot before slowly floating back down to settle onto the ground again.

“You were organizing the place anyway,” Hange says. She shuffles through the shelves lining the walls, sifting through massive stacks of papers and jars, finding herself on inkwell, slipping one of her pens from her pocket. “Now you just have more time to do it.”

“I wanted to organize the other closets too,” Levi mutters. He grabs a broom from the corner anyway, brushing dust into the corner. “The buildings here are too disorganized for their own good. It’s amazing you can find anything you need when you store food and office supplies in the same fucking room.

“Maybe that’s why so many of you guys are so disgusting,” Levi snorts. “Especially you.”

“There is order in my messes, Levi,” Hange replies. She flops down onto the crate again, flipping through her papers, eyes scanning the scribbled notes from behind the lenses of her glasses. “Maybe if you stopped poking your nose into other people’s business you wouldn’t be so busy cleaning after all of us.”

“It would be easier to if this place weren’t so gross.” Levi says, his face twisting at the dirt piling up.

“You should focus less on being clean,” Hange laughs. “Then you wouldn’t look so constipated all the time.”

“I’m not letting you guys wallow in filth.”

Hange only responses with a halfhearted grunt of affirmation, the only sound coming from her the ruffle of the sheets in her hand. He turns towards her, sees her brow already furrowed in deep concentration, chewing on her lip as she delves into her work again. 

Levi sighs heavily, turning back to his work. The two of them fall into a comfortable silence, punctuated by the scratching of pen on paper and the occasional murmured thought. Levi finds a rhythm in each stroke of the broom, eventually creating a substantial pile of dirt by the side of the door’s entrance. He moves on to sweeping over the shelves, meticulously evening out every box and bag and jar into rows, squinting at the fine print of the rare expiry date stamped along some of the containers. He tosses expired or damaged stuff to the ground, salvaging anything he can from water stained papers to broken jugs. Even with the mess of supplies gathering dust, he knows they can’t afford to waste anything with possible use.

He also manages to empty some of the shelves, gathering the things he wants to move to other closets or supply rooms scattered over the grounds in neat little piles on the floor. Despite the large floor space for a storage room, Levi still finds himself tripping over some of the piles or supplies scattered over the floor, losing his balance as he weaves his way through the maze he had created.

It takes a while until he considers the room adequately clean, having triple swept the room and going over each shelf with painstaking accuracy. But by the time he’s finished, there is still no sound from outside the door, the minutes ticking past with no sign of people in search for the two of them. His nerves start to buzz through his body, the room stuffy and hot around him. He starts to pace, grabbing the broom again, each sweep fast and vicious as it scrapes across the floor.

“I can’t believe this,” Levi mutters. “Not one person has passed through the hallway.”

He stops by the door, getting down on his hands and knees to look through the gap between it and the floor. No shadows passed by to obscure the light shining in, no feet appearing to tap their way past the outside of the room.

“This is fucking ridiculous,” Levi says, letting out a frustrated sigh, kicking the doorframe. Hange looks up at him, raising an eyebrow. “No one is even looking for us.”

“Levi,” Hange says cautiously, “you need to calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to fucking calm down,” Levi says. “I don’t know how you can be some fucking calm about being locked in a fucking storage room for so long.”

“Levi,” Hange says again, voice quieter. Levi turns on his heel to face her, his anger slowly dissipating, draining from his body when he sees her face. She sits straight backed on the crate, giving him a soft smile, a glimmer of understanding and sympathy in her eye. She puts her notes down, patting the space beside her on the wooden box with her palm.

He complies, flopping unceremoniously on the crate, the wood shaking at the impact. It shifts under his weight, the wood panel at the edge bending with the stress.

“They’ll find us eventually,” Hange says, picking up her notes again. She pushes her glasses up her nose, the firelight glinting off the lenses, illuminating the golden brown of her iris underneath. The corner of her mouth quirks up in a smirk, her hand nudging Levi’s shoulder. “I’m sure we won’t be sleeping in here tonight.”

“I fuckin’ hope so,” Levi whispers behind his clasped hands. He leans forward, his elbows on his knees, making one arm shake as he bounces his foot.

Hange slips back into her daze of concentration, eyes focused on the words scribbled across her paper. She puts her pen behind her ear, leaving ink spots in the already oily locks of her hair, pieces of it falling out of her hairclip. It leaves her hand empty, innocently taunting Levi from its perch beside his. He fights between the urges to push her hair behind her ear or take her hand, wondering how the callouses and blisters on her palms would feel against his own before mentally hitting himself. He feels his ears blush, and he pulls at his cravat, heat burning through him.

“Why do you even have all your papers here?” Levi says.

Hange’s head pops up at the question like a startled deer, her eyes wide in surprise before answering him. “I guess it was just a fluke,” Hange shrugs. “I had a list of certain chemicals I needed, and I must have grabbed my whole file with it.”

“At least you have something to do,” Levi grumbles, looking down at his feet, scratching his face.

“You shouldn’t be so tense,” Hange says. Her hand moves to stop Levi’s knee from bouncing. He stops with her touch, his heart palpitating, his body growing stiff with anxiety beside her. “I know you don’t like places like these, but we’ll be out of here soon. Just relax.”

He nods in response to her encouraging smile, looking back down at the floor. He feels heat rise in his neck with embarrassment, hating how obvious his agitation is. But he’s secretly grateful for her concern, glad she would actually care enough to know he never liked being in the supply closets around base; despite visiting them often to grab cleaning supplies, he never liked being in them much, the dank darkness of them reminding him too much of the tiny rooms and alleyways he spent his childhood in.

She turns back to her pages, tilting the paper in her hand, squinting at the illegible scribbles. “I can’t even read my own writing,” Hange laughs quietly. “I’m surprised Erwin can even make this out.” 

“What are you looking over?” Levi asks, voice low, leaning over to scan the chicken scratch of Hange’s handwriting. Her cursive, unlike many of those in Sina, whose handwriting was a sign of their wealth and prestige, was not delicate or elegant. Instead of rounded letters, hers were long and sharp, so thin you could barely see the loops, the words curving off of their straight lines. He wouldn’t have known someone as vulgar and eccentric as her would have writing that symbolized a past of grand luxury, yet it fit her perfectly; her writing was not meant for calligraphy on wedding invitations, but for the hurried, messy thoughts of a researcher on the brink of a breakthrough.

“They’re just some notes from studying Teddy the other day,” Hange says, grinning when she sees Levi cringe in disgust at the mention of the abnormal titan out on the back lawn of the army grounds. “Thanks for capturing him, by the way.”

“You should be thanking Nanaba more, since she almost lost an arm getting him for you,” Levi says. “And you’re not welcome.” 

“You’re right,” Hange sighs. “She’s such a sweetheart, fun to be around, always putting up with my shit all the time.” She ends the sentence with a laugh, and Levi feels a pang of jealousy in his chest. He curses himself silently, pushing down the feeling before he can let it get to him, trying to stop his irrational thoughts from souring his mood anymore than it already is.

“You better be learning stuff from that thing,” Levi mutters belligerently.

“We are, actually,” Hange gasps eagerly. “You wont believe how far we’re getting with his response to sound.”

“How far are you getting?” He watches her eyes light up, readying himself for the onslaught of knowledge he knew would start flooding from her mouth, overwhelming him. He sits up, his mood lifting just slightly. He secretly enjoyed her ramblings, thankful for the knowledge she had that helped give him the upper hand, as well as the opportunity to watch her in comfortable silence, not having to worry about being able to carry out a polite conversation.

“We’ve noticed that Teddy responds to some sounds more readily or aggressively than with others,” Hange says, flipping through her notes viciously, words flowing out of her like a river. “We know that it will respond quickly to a human voice over the sound of other animals. However we don’t know whether that could also be a response to our smell or our appearance to them, and we still have to determine what senses it relies on the most; I made a bet with Moblit that it would be its sense of smell, since titans do seem to be able to find humans over large distances, but he thinks its their hearing.

“We also noticed that, even with no human in sight, or a response any kind of smell that could indicate humans are nearby, Teddy would turn his head quickly to the sound of the maneuver gear. Now, I might have seen an abnormal like him in the very distant past, although it is unlikely that he could be that same titan. Still, we think that he could be responding to it as if it were a threat or if it were a human.”

“So you’re telling me the titans know that maneuver gear can kill them?” Levi asks.

“That’s a possibility,” Hange says pensively, her teeth clicking against one of her fingernails. “However, the titans really have no current reason to feel threatened, so I think fear or ‘fight or flight’ survival mechanisms may be foreign emotions to them. I think it has more to do with its association with humans. They often see us zipping by on our gear, meaning its sound and sight may signal our presence.”

“So they’re learning and adapting to our fighting methods,” Levi says.

“I don’t know,” Hange sighs, her forehead creasing in thought. She looks down, the light of the fire glinting off her glasses, blocking out her eyes from behind them. “This could be just a giant misinterpretation of our observations. It is obvious that most, if not all titans, act on primitive urges instead of rational thought, whatever those urges are.

“But if we are right, it could prove that titans have the ability to learn and think, which throws our previous theory about titans having no thought capacity out the window.”

“Fuck,” Levi sighs. “I’m guessing that’s not good.”

“No, it’s not,” Hange says, stretching, raising her muscled arms over her head. Her words come out as a groan. “Although it could give us a better understanding of how they work.”

There’s a beat of silence, Levi processing all the information. He wonders what others would make of her research now, what precautions Erwin may or may not take, thinks of the ways he might have to be more careful when beyond the walls on their next expedition.

“Good job,” Levi says, his words stiff. He jerks his head in a nod.

“Oh,” Hange startles, almost shocked by his random words of praise. She lets out a breathy laugh, pushing her hair behind her ear with the smallest of smiles. “Thank you.”

Her words are cut off by a sharp hiss, her face twisting in pain. Levi straightens, watching Hange jerk her hand away from her hair, now splattered and stained with ink, her pen tangled in the knots of her hair.

“Your pen,” Levi says. He moves forward, moving close enough so that their bodies are pressed together. His fingers start to brush through her hair, squirming at the feeling of grease against his fingertips. He tries to make the best of his opportunity, attempting to ignore the fact that she probably hasn’t washed her hair in the last week, relishing in the chance to be able to get close to her. “Let me get it.” 

“Thanks,” Hange winces, wrinkles forming in her brow at the pain. “Try not to pull.”

“It’s kind of hard,” Levi says, his fingers picking meticulously through the knots of ink buried in her hair, “when you don’t wash your hair.”

“Oh fuck off,” Hange says, letting out another groan of pain. “My hair is perfectly fine, thank you very much.”

“That’s a lie and you fucking know it,” Levi replies. “I hate your hair sometimes.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Yes I do.”

“If you did, you wouldn’t be running your fingers through now, would you?” Hange says smugly, giving him a satisfied grin. “If you didn’t like it you wouldn’t try so hard to get me to wash it either.”

Levi stops, wordlessly pulling the pen out of her hair. She yells in protest, her head pulled along with it, wincing in pain.

“Sorry,” Levi says dully. Despite his deadpan expression, he means it. “Maybe if you had let me wash it more often it wouldn’t have hurt so much.”

“I can wash it on my own just fine,” Hange says, leaning forward, her nose coming close to his. She gives him another smug grin, their legs pressed flush against each other as they move to the center of the crate, the wood creaking under their combined weight. “In fact, I think you just enjoy washing my hair because you like it so much.”

“Maybe you don’t wash it because you like it when I wash it for you,” Levi says. He moves forward, pointing his nose out in an friendly attempt to imitate her, their faces close enough that he could see the individual pores in her cheeks, the different shades of brown in her eyes. 

Their conversation grinds to an awkward halt, their faces stopping inches from each other, the two of them staring at each other with wide, understanding eyes, heat rising in their faces, unable to deny the truth in each other’s statements.

“Fuck it,” Levi whispers under his breath. He watches Hange’s face twist in confusion, then in shock as he starts to lean in awkwardly, almost losing his balance as he makes what he think might be the worst move of his life. Levi feels his heart thump in his chest violently, the palms of his hands sticky with sweat, his brain screaming at him to back up before he regrets his decision or fuck something up – and he knows he’s going to do at least one of the two by the time he leans back. Instead, he lets his instincts take over, the urge to press his lips against hers dragging him in.

The wooden beam of the crate they’re on breaks before he can close the gap. 

His gut flips in his stomach, the butterflies already flitting in it almost rising up into his mouth. He hears Hange let out a shrill shriek, the two of them crashing to the floor on their asses with a grunt. Her notes go flying, papers floating through air and slowly floating down to the floor.

They look at each other with wide eyes in silence, the two of them staring like deers caught in the headlight of a car before Hange throws her head back, her mouth open, letting loose a howl of laughter.

Levi grimaces, slowly getting up, a hand moving to rub the future bruise on his left butt cheek. He hears the muffled sound of alarmed voices, footsteps sounding from outside the door before the doorknob starts jiggling, the door swinging open to let light flood in from the outside hallway.

“Hange!” Moblit exclaims, rushing in when he sees her on the ground. He extends a hand for her, one that she swats away. 

“I’m fine, Moblit, I’m fine,” she laughs, wiping tears from her eyes. “Just took a tumble, that’s all.”

“What are you two doing in here?” Moblit asks, looking around the room. “Did you organize the place?”

“We got locked in,” Hange says. She leans down, picking up the notes scattered across the floor, picking up the fallen lantern to blow it out. “Levi took the time to clean the place up.”

“How long were you in here for?”

“Not long,” Hange says, waving a dismissive hand. “Right, Levi?”

“Right,” Levi says stiffly, glaring at her, crossing his arms over his chest.

“We’re both fine,” Hange reassures, patting Moblit on the shoulder. “But we should be getting back to work now.”

“Yeah,” Moblit says tentatively, slowly shuffling out of the room. Hange follows him, leaving Levi standing solemnly by the broken pieces of the crate.

“You coming?” Hange asks, holding the door open. She gives him an awkward smile, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Let me clean this place up first,” Levi grumbles, turning to the few splinters of wood on the floor. 

“Alright,” Hange says softly, nodding, “let me know if you need any help.” 

She slowly turns away, shoving the doorjamb by the entrance into place extra carefully. She glances over her shoulder, giving him a small wave before hurrying down the hall, leaving Levi in the empty, dark room to clean the remnants of their brief stay inside and his own burning embarrassment.


End file.
